Flushing With Pride

Some lawyers like to endow buildings or classrooms or law libraries at their alma maters.

Not Dicky Grigg. The Austin, Texas, lawyer prefers restrooms.

Grigg has thus far endowed three men’s rooms at Texas Tech University, his alma mater. The latest loo is housed in Tech Law’s new Mark and Becky Lanier Professional Development Center in Lubbock.

“When members of the public come into the law school, some will attend classes or seminars or meetings, but they only use some of the rooms there. Everyone has to use a restroom. So this way I can fund a room that is helpful to everyone. Well, every male,” wisecracks Grigg. “It’s helping me to serve the public.”

Grigg’s newest restroom set him back only five grand, which he says is cheap compared to the others he has endowed at Texas Tech—one at the school’s alumni association offices and the other at its ath­letic center. Those, Grigg says, came with five-figure price tags.

And that’s another reason Grigg says he likes to endow bathrooms. He doesn’t feel like he’s flushing his money … well, you know. Unlike naming rights for buildings or classrooms, “there’s no bidding wars over restrooms,” he quips.

Meanwhile, the newly opened Lanier Center is still looking for someone to endow the women’s restroom, but Grigg says not to look to him for the money. It’s nothing against women, he says. “I just don’t want anyone to think I am a pervert.”